PESKY POLES: THE IPCC SPEAKS

If the arctic is warming and the antarctic is not, it's hardly GLOBAL warming is it? The IPCC report on the subject has now apparently passed political vetting and a summary of it is below. The article notes the difference between the two poles but does not really try to explain it. But the difference is no great mystery. It is arctic sea-ice that has receded a bit recently. The land-based ice on Greenland appears to be stable or growing, just like the antarctic ice, which is also mostly land-based. So how come THAT difference -- between different parts of the arctic? Easy. Right underneath the sea-ice is the Gakkel ridge, which is showing a high rate of vulcanism at the moment. If you had a volcano under you, you would melt too

:

The Antarctic will be spared the worst of global warming and its ice mass could even grow, but the Arctic will be devastated by rising temperatures, a major new scientific report will claim. In contrast to earlier fears that ice around the South Pole will suffer widespread melting, the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change says that Antarctica's ice sheets will remain too cold for widespread melting before the end of the century and are expected to get bigger as more snow falls.

The Arctic, by comparison, will suffer widespread loss of sea ice while the Greenland ice sheet will have almost completely disappeared by the end of the century. Up to half of the Arctic tundra will be replaced by forests as temperatures rise by 4degC.

In two weeks the UN panel will publish its final, most authoritative assessment of the impact global warming is having on the planet and how it can be tackled. Its conclusions contrast with fears that Antarctica was already beginning to suffer the effects of climate change, with large chunks of the continental ice shelf breaking off in recent years.....



Source

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)